Failing negotiations

A rare piece of relatively good news for Bushco lately: contrary to earlier appearances, the U.S. is only one of many countries making it difficult for anybody to agree on UN reform:

"We are in a crisis situation at the moment," said Pakistan's UN ambassador, Munir Akram. "There has to be something for the heads of state and government to adopt, but obviously we're not going to reach a conclusion by doing what we've been doing."...

Seven issues are snagging talks: poverty and development, terrorism, collective action to prevent genocide, disarmament and nuclear nonproliferation, a new Human Rights Council to replace the discredited Human Rights Commission, a new Peacebuilding Commission to help countries emerging from conflict; and the overhaul of UN management.

Diplomats involved in the negotiations said the United States, Egypt, India, Pakistan, Iran, Cuba and Venezuela had taken hardline positions on different issues...

India's Sen said differences remained on all the key issues and that some "are insurmountable," citing disarmament and nonproliferation and intervention in another country in case of genocide or war crimes.

Now, to any state genuinely pursuing UN reform, this is a disastrous state of affairs. The issues still in dispute don't appear to be ones that can possibly be worked out without some serious give and take - and two of them (disarmament and nonproliferation) are plainly ones where the U.S. stands alone against most of the rest of the world.

But it's clear from the above list that the U.S. doesn't mind being seen as a rogue state, even if it means taking a very curious side when it comes to the total picture. The U.S. is now fighting against the entire E.U. and 100 other countries who have signed onto the current draft. On Bush's side is a group of nuclear proliferators (India and Pakistan), human rights abusers (Egypt and Iran) and countries which are going out of their way to try to counter the U.S.' influence (Cuba and Venezuela).

(Of course, some of the holdouts fit into more than one of the above categories. Mix and match as needed.)

Needless to say, there doesn't appear to be much chance of a meaningful deal being reached. But don't expect Bushco to be too disappointed. Because if the goal is to try to prove through sheer obstructionism that a multilateral decision-making body is unworkable, then this is on the verge of truly being a Mission Accomplished.